Measuring the complexity of processor bugs to improve testbench quality

I am often asked the question “When is the processor verification done?” or in other words “how do I measure the efficiency of my testbench and how can I be confident in the quality of the verification?”. There is no easy answer. There are several common indicators used in the industry such as coverage and bug curve. While they are absolutely necessary, these are not enough to reach the highest possible quality. Indeed, such indicators do not really unveil the ability of verification methodologies to find the last bugs. With experience, I learned that measuring the complexity of processor bugs is an excellent indicator to use throughout the development of the project.

What defines the complexity of a processor bug and how to measure it?

Experience taught me that we can define the complexity of a bug by counting the number of independent events or conditions that are required to hit the bug.

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